Huh, Quiet on the Home Front
by Wilfite
Summary: It's the future.  The Masters are back.  A new war looms.  Thanks to popular demand, I'll be continuing this story for a while.  No promises on length. Wilfi
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer-The Usual: I don't own Robotech. Someone else does. Really. It's Harmony Gold, I think. Don't sue me, you wouldn't get much. Also, the term "Guardian Forces" is borrowed from someone else, I just can't remember who. It's not mine, I'm not claiming it's mine. Now, on to the story...

**Huh...Quiet on the Home Front  
**By Wilfi Te

Huh.

I remember when I was just a little kid. The tail end of the great wars.  
Just like every other kid in school, I wanted to be a VT pilot. We saw those silvery beings streak off on some mission or patrol nearly every day. When I finally got old enough to fake being 18, I joined up! It took me a few years, but I finally got to be a VT pilot, a jet jock, a 'mechamorph-but the wars were over. Sure, I got to take part in the 'final battle,' when the regis left, but that was it. I flew back-up...didn't even get to shoot my gun pod! A few missiles and it was all over. Huh, everybody was so happy, while I looked around and wondered "what now"

I didn't join the REF to fly endless patrols and be a peacetime soldier, I wanted ACTION!  
For lack of another opportunity, I stayed with the REF. 'Course, it wasn't the good old REF anymore, though, it was the 'Guardian Forces.' Spending for new mecha dropped as civilians took over the government once again. I tried a few years out of the service after my second tour, but soon learned I couldn't stand the interminable confusion of civvie life. How could all those old nation states stand it? Old USA, good as she was, how could she stay together without being ripped apart at the seams?

When the call went out for volunteers to go along with the new colonizing fleets that were being assembled, I jumped at the chance. I'd since grown up and realized military life was more than guts and glory, it was responsibility and trust. I figured I'd go along with the 9th fleet. Figured I'd have better chances at promotion, maybe even find a girl.

Luck hadn't much come my way, you see, I'm not nearly as debonair or handsome as these younger hotshots, though Admiral Haye's daughter always was after me. I just couldn't bring myself to say yes, for some reason. That's all in the past, though. There are more important things to worry about now. Huh, what if I'd stayed behind, eh?

I've got my own squadron, now. Haven't seem much action so far, but I stay in practice anyway...you never know, or rather, we didn't know.  
Until now.  
It happened just a few days ago. That message came through, just barely, not even all of it. Just enough.  
I can see the earth irradiated on that vid screen, even now.  
"Guardian fleet 10 to all earth ships. This is ensign Pride, I'm all that's left here..."

I remember the scared look on that kid's face, smeared with soot and blood from a gash on his face. The masters had somehow came back with a huge fleet of some new ships I'd never seen before. It wasn't Zentreadi or Invid that served them, though, it was some other race. We only saw a body in space, but it looked vaguely micronian. Anyway. The masters came back and totally destroyed the Earth. It's...gone. All of it, everyone. Gone.

The masters had sent hunter killer squads and killed everyone in the Sol system according to Ens. Pride. They had sworn vengance on all humanity for "all they'd had to go through." With as many troops and ships as I saw, I don't doubt they can build an empire again. I figure they must think they killed everyone, the whole human race. I don't think they know about us, the 'galactic seeds of humanity,' sent forth so we could never be nearly destroyed again. Just think, without us, humanity would be gone.

Huh.  
All my life I've wanted action. Never got much though.  
Now, it's 2062. I'm 37 years old. Still no kids or wife, but that's ok, 'cause I think I'm finally gonna get some action. I'm not trying to sound like a headstrung twenty year old, but I still feel the old urge to kick ass. The Governor says they think they've found Eralth, the planet we were sent to colonize. Good, maybe we can make this one a good one, even with all that civvie confusion.

This isn't earth, but it's our home now. We will fight, with all we have. This time, WE will conquer. This time, We'll make sure the masters 'disappear' permanently. It'll take a lot of work. The little data we have shows they far outclass our Alpha II's and Vinnie's, but with a little luck and Emil Lang's son, I'm sure we'll have something bigger and badder than ever.

Till then, it's quiet on the home front.


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: Robotech, et. al.-not mine. Cap. Graves, the general situation-mine. 'nuff said._

_**Huh...Quiet on the Home Front  
Chapter 2, by Wilfi Te.**_

What do you think? Do we have a chance?

I just got out of a briefing by Cap. Graves. He says they've picked up some more data on the enemy. He says they've got a fleet of 8-10 million ships, all new kinds with new kinds of fighters. I guess it's no different than the 1st Great War. I mean, they had millions then, too, right? And it was all new to us then too. We've got a lot more weaponry now, and we know how to fight, so maybe it's not so bad. Then why do I have this bad feeling? I mean, it's like the other boot has yet to drop or something. Don't get me wrong, I'm ready for the fight, I 'm just not sure we're ready, yet. It may be a moot point anyway. Command doesn't seem to think the Masters know we're here, and they mean to keep it that way. Ha, I don't blame them! All new comm protocols have been sent out to the rest of the colony fleets with new encode algorithms and tighter comm schedules so we don't reveal ourselves before we're ready.

Oh, I finally met someone. Her name is Sandy. I met her on leave over on the Remsa, our holiday ship. She's kind of clumsy, I had to rescue her from her surfboard. She's pretty though, dark brown hair, green eyes, long legs, the whole shebang. She's a pilot too, based over on the Hawking's battle section. I hope we can make it work.

I heard some rumors today that Wolfgang, that's Lang's son, well, that he's come up with some hot new fighter. Good timing, eh? I put in for test-pilot status, maybe I can get some early stick time on it. Back in the day, once Ol' Blue became a captain, they relaxed the test-pilot rules so anyone who flies regularly can put in for test-status. They didn't want to lose 'Ol' blue.' I don't know if it was a good idea or not, but hey, it might get me a chance, so it's alright by me. I heard that after Ol' Blue got his own wing, he still would go out and do tests. No matter how hard they tried to keep it a secret, word always got out and his whole wing would show up to spectate. Funny stuff, eh? They never did change the rules though. Heck, I don't care if the guys want to watch, more power to 'em.

News is that Eralth is bigger than originally thought. There's some talk of re-directing another of the colonization fleets here, now that…Earth is gone.  
They say it'd be good to have a larger population here, more manufacturing, better skill base, etc. On the other hand, what if they find us too soon? If we get wiped out then, that's not one, but two colonies destroyed. It's a big debate right now. Who knows which way it'll go. That's not the only thing changing. There's big changes in the fleet now that we know we have an active enemy. Don't get me wrong, we've always kept alert, flown patrols, just watched, but now the stealth ships are taking wider patrol tracks and several of the colony fleets have just gone silent. At least one of them announced their intentions to go underground, but the others- well, we're hoping they're just keeping radio silence. Some of them are still fairly close to the Sol system. Admiral Cretz sent a self-destruct code to the Sol system comm repeater. We don't want the Masters to be able to eavesdrop on fleet comms and find out we're here. I wonder about home. Did anyone else survive? Now that we've cut off comms with our home system, anyone left there is alone. They'd have to have been in space or deep, deep underground to have survived. I suppose we'll never find out.

I just got the new ops plan this morning, tomorrow we start an intense training program. I'll be flying as coach and instructor probably 16 hours a day. Won't THAT be fun? Heh, I think I'll make Sogrinsky my wingman, he's always whining about not getting enough stick time, this'll straighten him out. The kid's a good pilot, he's just a whiner. I really hate whiners, they remind me of me when I was their age.

Huh, how times never change, eh?

_A/N: For this fic, I'm pulling a lot of background data from Dave Deitrich's site, steelfalcon dot com. Yea, it's RPG, not officially "Canon," well, I read the books, then played the rpg then saw the anime for the first time, so in my mind it's the anime that's all messed up. I never really have seen the original Macross series. I haven't heard from Dave in years, but he's kept his site up, which is great. Thanks Dave!_


	3. Chapter 3

"Brilliant," I said. "Wonderful," I said. "This is Awesome!" I said. Huh..."STUPID." That's what I should have said.

Remember that hot new fighter I put in for? Well, yea, I got it. Been flyin' it for a week now. It's pretty hot...problem is, it's real subdued. You don't know you're not in control anymore until - well, you're not. There I was, flying patterns and testing the maneuvering jets. Wolfy's managed to pull 37 percent more thrust from the same ol' maneuvering jets we been using for years. He's been telling me to be careful all week, but what did I do? Yep, you guessed it, had to run 'em all the way up. Turns out that last 15 percentile isn't any too stable. I 'bout ripped through Admiral Crict's cabin window while trying to pull out of a flat spin before I hit the landing ship. Managed to miss the ship though, well mostly - Oh, yea, forgot to mention we arrived on station at Eralth. It wasn't exactly the arrival we thought we'd have...the flying vet-that's what we call the holiday ship - lost its orbiting thrusters - gave out just after they passed the lagrange point. They couldn't recover back into a high orbit and had to do a controlled crash into the ocean. They made it, though some folks did get hurt. In the process, they suffered a hull breach in the marine section - the whole artificial lake drained. Guess we got a start on that whole seeding thing, eh? I hear we should have some decent fishing in a couple years. Ha!

Anyway, like I was saying, after I got out of the spin the bow thruster - the one that didn't fire in the first place, causing the spin - finally fired and threw me back toward the landing ship again. I managed to avoid it the second time, but crash in the field next to it. Now I'm in this bed, all wired up and being pumped full of junk. Great. The doc says I'll be up and at'em in a couple weeks. I sure hope so, you can only watch Gunsmoke reruns so many times!

No news from Sol yet. It's amazing how quickly old earth became "Sol" and Eralth became "Home." It's a good thing we're an adaptable species. I hear the Admiral sent out one of the stealth ships back towards Sol to find one of the other colony fleets that left after we did. They went silent a couple weeks ago after agreeing to join us here. I hope they're ok, 'cuz they've got the coord's for Eralth.

There is one good thing about being laid up like this, though, Sandy's been by almost every day. Looks like we got a good thing going here. Hope I don't jinx it.

Anyway, talk to ya later.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer:** Insert complete, meaningful and wordy comment absolving me of all responsibility for copyright infringement (I'm just playing with Robotech, it's not mine and I'll put it right back when I'm done, honest!), world peace, hungry hippos, my neighbors attrocious hair style, that awful color of the house across the street and those stupid wing-things people put on the back of import cars (what exactly IS the point, of those, anyway? It's not like you're doing 200mph...)_

**Huh, Quiet on the Homefront, part IV  
Written by Wilfi Te**

Huh, it's been a while, hasn't it? Boy, life's gotten busy.

I wasn't in the hospital long, Doc cleared me in a week or two. Still wasn't up to full duty yet, but I was going crazy just layin' there. Doc put me on half-duty teaching a rookie class on tactics to the new crop. Not a bad gig, really, but I was achin' to get back behind the stick. I got stuck teachin' the class, but was still able to hit the runway a couple weeks later. Heh, I used to think I was a bulletproof hotshot and made fun of the guys who screwed up like I just did…guess that means I'm getting old, huh? So now I'm teachin' class on Monday nights, instructing flight classes days and hanging out with Sandy nights. That's working out so far, I never knew anyone like her before. She's funny.

There's been a lot of activity out-system, lately. A courier beacon from the stealth ship sent to rendevous with fleet 11 came back. Looks like they got away clean from Sol, but to be safe they've made a layover in another star system to check for a tail. Far as I know, the plan is for the 11'ers to slip out of the system one or two ships at a time and head for here. If all's gone well, we should start seeing their first civilian ships in-system in a month or so. In the meantime, Admiral Crect's waylaid half the planetary construction crews to build a series of orbiting forts throughout the home system here. The governor ain't all that happy about it, but he's got his priorities right. Gotta be able to protect the system first. Don't get me wrong, things are coming along well planetside, just not all that quick. Once the 11'ers show up, the pace will pick up.

Speaking of the colony, I'm a little concerned about how things have been going, I think we gotta be real careful here. Knowing we have a real enemy just over the horizon, the whole colony here has been constructing mech's, forts and ships, and the cities look more military than civilian. We can't lose sight of building a free society here. It's not just me that's askin, there's been a lot of press lately about it too. I hope the Admiral is listening. I read a couple quotes the other day on the news feed from some old Greek guy, one said something like "We make war that we may live in peace," and I suppose that's where we are now, but he went on to say "The basis of a democracy is liberty," and I reckon that's where we gotta be. I sure hope the colonial government stays on top of it. If we turn into the Zennies, why even bother with all this?

Anyway, we commissioned two more small fleets of stealth ships yesterday , they're scheduled to head out to the planned locations of some of the other colonies. With one exception, we don't actually know if the other fleets still exist, have landed, or what. We have to find out. If we're to have any chance against the Masters, we'll need allies, resources and forward bases. Wolfy's told me on the sly they're talking about commissioning a squadron of that new fighter, I guess he got the thruster problem figured out while I was laid up. I put in a word with the Cap for my squadron to be upgraded and sent out, it'd be great to get out there in the thick of it again. After having spent so much time in space, being dirtside's a little weird. Everytime I see someone open a window I gotta remind myself there's air out there. Funny, huh? I figure we got a good chance at the new fighter. The plan was for my squadron to head out with one of the local patrol fleets, and I've been helping with development of the new fighter for a while so we 'bout already got our foot in the door. Wish us luck.

_A/N: It's not my fault. It's up there somewhere (the story, I mean) and I can only seem to grab a little bit at a time. Live with it :-)_


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer:_ _I pledge alliegance, to the flag, of th-Oh, wrong speech. (ahem) My People! Hear Me-Nope, that's the wrong one too. It's around here somewhere, it's-Ah. Found it. Dearest Readers, I do solemnly declare, on the sacred word of wilfi, I give you my un-dying pledge, my solem oath on my father's honor, on the blood of my heart, on the word of my soul, on the very center of my being that nothing shall-_Ah, never mind, that's not it either...

**Huh...Quiet on the Home Front**  
**Chapter Five, by Wilfite**

Yep. We got it.

My squadron ships out today. These new VX-3 Ghostriders are the real deal! The production model's not *quite* the same as the prototype I was flyin' before, but the minor differences aren't a big deal. Boy, are these things fast! Wolfy brought back the ol' Super-V idea, so not only do we get new mecha, we get "backpacks" with some fancy missile launchers and armor upgrades (How can they be upgrades when it's a new model...? Nevermind, I probably don't wanna know anyway). With the extra stuff, our range is quadrupled, and the stealth modifications should let us sneak right up on the enemy...which is a good thing, cuz that's just what we're gonna do. Remember those stealth ships I was talking about? The fleet got back from their assignments and ships out en-masse in the morning for the Sol system. We'll ease on in from up the eliptic, drop a few satellites and do some recon. If the way's clear enough, me and the boys'll try to sneak up a bit closer. 'Course, this could be a one-way trip. We've all got self-destruct charges rigged up so if we're captured or incapacitated the bad boys won't be able to get a look at our tech. That parts a little nerve-racking, but it's just part of the job, I guess.

Me and Sandy spent our last night together on "New Australia" before I ship out. Fancy finding a continent with almost the exact shape and environment clear across the galaxy, eh? Had a nice time of it, hung out on the beach, did some fishing (can't eat the native fish, but man, do they put on a Fight!) and practiced our Australian accents. No, there's no one here from the original down-under, but hey, when in Rome...

The last of the 11'ers showed up a couple weeks ago. No sign of a tail, looks like a clean getaway. Now that everyone's here, productivity's way up. We've got orbital factories turning out two of the new fighters every three days and the two main cities dirtside are nearly complete. Everyone's been able to move off the ships and down to dirtside quarters if they want 'em. Not too many civvies up here anymore. It's a bit weird, really. At the start, I complained about all the civvies, but now they're gone, it just seems-empty, I guess. Better they go, though. Discipline's better without the distraction, and if the little we know about the enemy is even half-right, we need all the help we can get.

I better hit the sack so I can get up for tomorrow's briefing at 0200. Tell me, why the heck do we have to leave at such an early time? It's not like we're sneaking in before daylight or something! Sheesh!


	6. Chapter 6

So...like, what's this disclaimer thing all about, anyway? I mean, like, If you DIS-claim, you're what, No longer claiming something you've already claimed before? Is it like if you Exclaim? Wait-that one doesn't make any sense either...you're EX-claiming, which means what, you're no longer claiming but demand alimony? It's so confusing! Well, here's another installment of Quiet on the Home Front....it's still quiet, but suspiciously so.

(Robotech, Macross, Frisbee, Macintosh, Coca Cola and whole lot of other brand names belong to people richer than I. I'm just borrowing one of them for a little bit.)

**Huh...Quiet in the Home Front**  
**By Wilfi Te**

Strange...meet stranger.

The trip in was easy-peezy. Sure, we were stealthed, so we had to keep quiet, but we had plenty of time. One thing about stealth mode is we keep the patrol flights in close, to keep a small radar footprint. It makes for short flights, so us flyboys got to laze about and take it easy for a couple weeks. After all the craziness back home, boy was it a nice change. Don't think us slackers, now, we knew we'd be plenty busy once we arrived, but hey, we'll take what we can get!

So as I was sayin', pretty easy trip in, no problems at all. We camped out on the edge of the Sol system for a couple days to listen in, but weren't able to pick up any transmissions at all. Cap'n figured that was a bit odd, so we slunk about a little more before heading in-system. No sign of the Masters at all. I guess we all assumed they'd have set up a base, or something. After a few days, Cap sent us out on the Valkyrie mission. We took a sling off the ship and coasted in to save fuel before lighting up and easing closer into the asteroid belt. We were on an extended recon assignment, so we spent a few days creeping in and out of the asteroid field looking for, well, anything, really. I came across the remains of several old installations from before the attack -- mostly mines and such. There were a few that were just blast-holes left in the rock. I figure those must have been military. No signs of life, though.

I'd really been secretly hoping to find someone. I figured the asteroid belt was the only spot someone might have managed to stay hidden in, but if they were there, they'd found an awfully great hiding spot. I thought I'd picked up something on the radio once, but after an hour of fiddling, I wasn't able to pick it up again. The computer said it was probably just noise. I hope so, I'd hate to find out I left someone behind. I know it's just a pipe-dream; with the planets irradiated and space installations destroyed, there's nothing left to support life. As the days passed, it was just hard to fight back depression. Man, they sure did a real job on the system. The Zennies, well, they just took a lot of pot-shots. These guys, whoever they are, they just wiped it all out. Earth doesn't even look like itself anymore. There was so much damage that landmasses have literally changed. Volcanism is crazy, the atmosphere's probably toxic. We didn't go all the way in, anyone who hated us this bad had to have left some kind of warning system. That's the thing that worries me, is we haven't found a sign of it. It's just not conceivable that they just...left. Well, I suppose it is, really. They didn't stop at earth. They hit Mars, Mercury, the asteroid belt, Pluto and most of the big moons of the Saturn and Neptune. Anything that looked remotely like it could have us on it -- destroyed. What kind of hate could drive that much destruction?

You know, I read. I read a lot, actually. You wouldn't think so, with all the attitude and jet-jock going on, but no, I really get into books. Before we left, I spent a couple weeks reading everything I could get my hands on relating to the Masters. Mission logs, histories, analyses, anything. I'll tell ya, I got a bad feeling. I don't know what it is, but it's bad. It's like, well, this kind of destruction isn't their style. Sure, they'd send the Zennies to wipe a planet, make an example, whatever, but they were never, ever this thorough. I don't get it. Sure, they're all a bunch of wackos, they'd have to be after living this long, but if they were going to go mad, it would've happened hundreds of years ago, so how could their attitude and approach have changed this much?

I don't know, but it's not really my job to. My job's done. We scouted as much of the system as we dared, dropped about twenty recon satellites and another ten relays. Only two of the relays are really active, the rest are decoys transmitting into empty space. After the initial week-long recon trip, Cap brought the ship into the belt and hid while we flew six sorties a day. We've been here a couple weeks, and still no sign of anything. Cap says we're going to ease out of the system tomorrow morning, 0200. We all gotta get a few winks to be at station in the morning.

What IS it with these guys? Two in the morning? WHY???


	7. Chapter 7

Robotech, et. al. = property of others. This is a proper utilization of the fair-use clause of relevant copyright laws.

**Huh...Quiet on the Home Front**  
**By Wilfi Te**

They might have seen us after all -- of course, we're not sure they were really there or...even who "they" are, really.

Cap'n got us going this morning at 0200, easing out-system, nice and slow. We had two wings of fighters at ready-1 with the rest at ready-5, but everyone within the hull so we could slip out quietly. The trip out was a very long three days of acceleration. Cap'n said he didn't want to leave any disturbance in our wake, and I agreed. Enough was enough, it was time to get out'a Dodge. Things were going, well, quietly, just like we like 'em all the way out. Yea, I know, that's a strange thing to hear from me, but it's true. Sure, I like action, but I m not suicidal.

Well, we'd crossed the elliptic and the Cap'n started to open 'er up to get us out'a there when the alert klaxons began blaring. My squad was at ready-1 right then, so we bailed out'a the lock lookin' for a scrap. Per the battle plan, we transformed to Guardian and stood a close guard, looking all around for where they were coming from.

Nothing. Not a single ship or mech in sight and nothing on radar. Per our contingency plan we changed course, continued for another hour then followed a long series of course changes to fake out any pursuit. We're now sittin' in the middle of deep space, waiting to see if we were followed. We don t know who or what it was that set the automatics off. The radar logs show an enormous radar signature some distance away from where we were; it was only there for a moment, and then it was gone. Who knows, it could have just been noise or something. Cap'n says they're doing a full overhaul of the Magnor's systems once we get back, but we re going to take our sweet time and mosey along; try to leave no trace. I figure we'll probably stop several times on the way back just to make sure. We can't lead them, whoever they are, back home. One thing's for sure, this situation keeps getting stranger and stranger.

Oh, and that bad feeling I had? Yea, it's getting worse. Haven't figured out why, but I m not about to ignore it. That's ONE thing I've learned in all my days....don't ignore it. I figure there's something in our subconscious that must pick up on things. I've seen to many guys get a feeling of this or that and pay the consequences of heeding or ignoring it. It's kept me alive a time or two.

My squad's up for standby duty next shift, I better get some shut-eye.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Oh Say Can You Say: The Thing I Disclaim is Plain, Robotech is not Mine to Claim, But to Play is Ok, as Long as I Say, I Don't Own It (and that is a shame).

Huh…

It's been a while, eh? You wouldn't believe what's happened in the interim. Still not sure I do either. Let's see if I can get it put down here, it's been quite a while, and I still can't get my head wrapped around it all. Probably won't get it all here, but if ya gotta start somewhere...

So there we were, sitting in our cockpits at ready-1 while the ship inched its way out-system. Suddenly all around us the ship seemed to explode with alarm klaxons, flashing lights, automatically deployed defenses and orders to LAUNCH! LAUNCH! LAUNCH! Me an' the boys dove out the 'lock like the house was on fire and formed up. Mecha poured out of airlocks and launch bays around us, filling the space around Magnor with clouds of hundreds of tiny pinpricks in space as flyboys boosted to their assigned defense grid. Didn't know what we were looking for, so we're out there, spinning our heads around like-to break out necks trying to figure out what started the party. Since I'm the guy at the top of the food-chain out here I call in to the bridge for a status report. Lisa (no, not THAT Lisa) on the bridge gives me the dope on what set off the sensors. Some kind of huge radar return close by that suddenly appeared, then dropped off the scopes. No idea what.

Well, me an' the boys were already out there, so I volunteered us to run a high cap patrol an' let everybody else dive back into their bunks. Boy are my guys gonna love me. Anyway, so we didn't see anything anywhere around. Cap sent me, Fergason and Wiley out on an extended patrol. We went a'visitin the site of the radar signature, but didn't find much besides some raised radiation levels. One thing is sure, there was definitely *something* out there, but it wasn't in the mood for us to come callin'. It skedaddled real quick, I guess.

Life returned to what passes for normal on a warship after that. Oh sure, there were additional patrols and all, but in general ship-board life carried on regardless. Well, for us flyboys, I mean. Cap had the engineering staff working double-shifts going over the ship's systems with a fine tooth comb to see if there was a malfunction of some kind. Sure, *something* was out there, but we don't know what or even how big it was. We layed over in a few systems on the way back, ran out on some off-courses, doubled back and generally tried to make anyone following us give up in exasperation. Looked like one of those "Family Circle" cartoons from those old newspaper things.

We got back about a month late, but we'd sent a coded com burst off in the middle of it to one of the relay buoys to make sure everybody at home knew we were ok. Thanks to that there wasn't much fanfare, we just kinda eased up to our berth and that was that. Now I figured there'd be hours and hours of debrief meetings, but Cap said our report was good enough. Huh. I remember thinking how odd that was; I'd find out later why.

It seems we weren't the only ones to see a ghost. You remember I said we went in with a small fleet of stealth ships? Yea, we didn't run into each other in-system, but there were about 6 of us scanning the system. Well, looks like 4 of us ran into what they're calling 'Ghosts'. We were the last to get in. Guess our Cap was a little more paranoid than the rest. Better late than dead, I guess. In each case, the ship's automatics saw them first, but by the time us flyboys scrambled they were already gone. Not a howdy-do or nothing. Not how Ma taught us to go visitin', let me tell you!

Lots of speculation on what these things were, but when it comes down to it, no one picked up any more detail than we did. All we know is, they were likely big and fast, could either jump into some kind of spacefold or had the best kind of cloaking tech I've ever heard of. We're assuming they were the bad guys, but there's really no proof either way except circumstantial in that they were in our system and didn't stop to say 'hi'.

Seems I missed Sandy by just a couple days, she flew out on a cruiser just 'fore we got back on her own mission. She left me a perfumed note at the barracks. Well, that's how it goes. We'd catch up later when she got back. Either way, it'd been a tense couple of months and it was time I took the boys out for a beer. That's tradition, round here. Fortunately I can expense it, otherwise I'd be a poor man!

On a different subject, while we were gone things finally calmed down a bit dirtside. The governor and command had a pow-wow to solve a bunch'a complaints the civies have had since the military had pretty much taken over when this whole dust-up started. Now don't get me wrong, the charter says that's how it goes if the excrement hits the dextrally rotating air accelerator, but the fact is, the military really doesn't want to run everything. So they hammered out an agreement to allocate resources and people, ensure freedoms are respected, etc. In general, let the civvies be civvies, let us flyboys be flyboys and cooperate to get all of our jobs done. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard, but whatever. I'm just a dumb jock, what do I know?

Oh, hey! I just rememberd, New Calcutta just built a ball field and each of the bigger settlements are starting up ball teams. Should be good for morale, and it's been years since I went to see a ball game. I'm looking forward to going to the first one. Every day down there I guess it's getting a little more like home. Don't get me wrong, we're still gonna roast the scum that roasted our homeworld, but the more settled we get out here, the better it is for us, and for our kids.

Well I reckon that's it for today. I gotta class full of snot-nosed rookies to disabuse of the notion they know anything and after that I'm headed halfway 'round the world to hit the opening festivities in New Calcutta. Got some shore-leave comin' from the last mission, hopefully Sandy will get back in a couple weeks and we can go camping or something. Should be fun!


End file.
